How to Use Session Risk in Mobile Bot Defense Using AI

Last updated August 7, 2025 by Appdome

This Knowledge Base article describes how to use Appdome’s AI in your CI/CD pipeline to continuously deliver plugins that Validate Session Risk in Mobile apps.

What is Session Risk?

Session Risk is critical in mobile security, ensuring session integrity and preventing threats like session hijacking, replay attacks, and tampering. Attackers exploit session vulnerabilities to intercept and modify data, posing risks to user privacy and application security. Secure session management is essential for apps handling sensitive transactions, as it enforces trusted communication between the app and its backend. Implementing strong session risk aligns with regulatory requirements and provides an additional defense against automated bot attacks and fraudulent activities.

How Appdome Protects Mobile Apps with Session Risk?

Appdome’s dynamic Session Risk plugin within MobileBOT™ Defense secures session integrity by embedding tamper-proof headers into each request, enabling Web Application Firewalls (WAFs) to classify sessions as “Safe” or “At-Risk.”

Note: You must configure the Safe and At-Risk session keys in your WAF for the detection to work properly.

The plugin also integrates payload signing and encryption, ensuring that session data remains protected from interception and unauthorized modification.

In case of a MITM (Man-in-the-Middle) event detection, Appdome enhances session security by including additional metadata in the WAF logs. In addition to device metadata, the logs will also contain server certificate metadata, such as:

  • certificateCN (Common Name)
  • certificateIssuer
  • certificateSHA1

Since a certificate chain may include multiple certificates, all certificates will be listed, such as certificateCN_1, certificateCN_2, and so on. The same applies to certificateSHA1 and certificateIssuer, ensuring comprehensive tracking of all certificates in the chain.

Prerequisites for Using Appdome's Session Risk Plugins:

To use Appdome’s mobile app security build system to Validate Session Risk , you’ll need:

How to Implement Validate Session Risk in Mobile Apps Using Appdome

On Appdome, follow these 3 simple steps to create self-defending Mobile Apps that Validate Session Risk without an SDK or gateway:

  1. Designate the Mobile App to be protected.

    1. Upload an app via the Appdome Mobile Defense platform GUI or via Appdome’s DEV-API or CI/CD Plugins.

    2. Mobile App Formats: .ipa for iOS, or .apk or .aab for Android
    3. Session Risk is compatible with: Obj-C, Java, JS, C#, C++, Swift, Kotlin, Flutter, React Native, Unity, Xamarin, and more.
  2. Select the defense: Session Risk.

      1. Create and name the Fusion Set (security template) that will contain the Session Risk feature as shown below:
        fusion set that contains Session Risk

        Figure 1: Fusion Set that will contain the Session Risk feature

      2. Follow the steps in Sections 2.2-2.2.2 of this article to add the Session Risk feature to your Fusion Set via the Appdome Console.

      3. When you select the Session Risk you'll notice that the Fusion Set you created in step 2.1 now bears the icon of the protection category that contains Session Risk.

        Fusion Set applied Session Risk

        Figure 2: Fusion Set that displays the newly added Session Risk protection
        Note: Annotating the Fusion Set to identify the protection(s) selected is optional only (not mandatory).

      4. Open the Fusion Set Detail Summary by clicking the “...” symbol on the far-right corner of the Fusion Set. Copy the Fusion Set ID from the Fusion Set Detail Summary (as shown below): fusion Set Detail Summary image

        Figure 3: Fusion Set Detail Summary

      5. Follow the instructions below to use the Fusion Set ID inside any standard mobile DevOps or CI/CD toolkit like Bitrise, Jenkins, Travis, Team City, Circle CI or other system:
        1. Refer to the Appdome API Reference Guide for API building instructions.
        2. Look for sample APIs in Appdome’s GitHub Repository.
    1. Add the Session Risk feature to your security template.

      1. Navigate to Build > Anti Bot tab > MobileBOT™ Defense section in the Appdome Console.
      2. Toggle On > Session Risk.
        Session Risk option

        Figure 4: Selecting Validate Session Risk

      3. Extra Configuration with Session Risk:
        1. On-Device Bot Detection

          Scroll down to the "Mobile Device & Connection Risk" accordion. Then click "Add" next to "Add On-Device Bot Detection", and tick the relevant checkboxes. On-Device Bot Detection enables mobile developers to configure which on-device threats—such as Root, Magisk, Emulators, Jailbreak, Fake Location, and more—will contribute to session risk classification in the app. For each detection, developers define a DEVICETrust™ level: Zero-Trust, which delays connection until checks are complete, or Runtime-Trust, which allows assessment during connection. For example, when adding Detect Fake Location as a detection, the session will be classified as compromised based on location spoofing. This configuration feeds into Mobile Device & Connection Risk, which tags each session as Safe or At-Risk and enables WAFs and backend systems to validate session authenticity in real time. That visibility allows organizations to stop tampered requests, prevent data leakage, and block automated bot traffic at the network edge. This layered session integrity model is vital for securing sensitive mobile workflows—such as login, payments, and digital identity flows—and aligns with regulatory mandates like PSD2 and FFIEC.

        2. Threat-Event™ Meta-Data

          Scroll down to the "Mobile Device & Connection Risk" accordion. Then toggle on "Threat Event Meta Data". This is an optional configuration in Mobile Device & Connection Risk that enriches mobile bot detection payloads with additional environmental context, including operating system, device model, manufacturer, and SSL certificate metadata. These metadata fields are used by WAFs to assess whether the mobile session originates from a legitimate safe or at risk endpoint. For example, a mismatch between the expected OS and actual manufacturer may indicate spoofing, emulation, or device tampering. Including Threat-Event™ Meta-Data enhances precision in bot detection by providing critical details needed to analyze and respond to suspicious sessions. This is especially useful in regulated industries like fintech or healthcare, where understanding device provenance and environment is key to securing app workflows, detecting anomalies, and enforcing zero-trust access controls.

        3. Get ThreatScore™ Data

          Scroll down to the "Mobile Device & Connection Risk" accordion. Then toggle on "Get ThreatScore Data". ThreatScore™ is an optional configuration in Mobile Device & Connection Risk that adds a numeric risk score to each user and device session, helping backend systems quantify and respond to bot and automation threats. This score reflects the cumulative risk based on detected mobile threats—such as root, Magisk, emulators, or fake location—and provides a simplified value to inform automated policy decisions.

        4. Extra configuration image for Session Risk
    2. Initiate the build command either by clicking Build My App at the bottom of the Build Workflow (shown in Figure 4) or via your CI/CD as described in Section 2.1.4.
    Congratulations!  The Session Risk protection is now added to the mobile app
  3. Certify the Session Risk feature in Mobile Apps

    After building Session Risk, Appdome generates a Certified Secure™ certificate to guarantee that the Session Risk protection has been added and is protecting the app. To verify that the Session Risk protection has been added to the mobile app, locate the protection in the Certified Secure™ certificate as shown below: Session Risk shown in Certificate secure

    Figure 5: Certified Secure™ certificate

    Each Certified Secure™ certificate provides DevOps and DevSecOps organizations the entire workflow summary, audit trail of each build, and proof of protection that Session Risk has been added to each Mobile app. Certified Secure provides instant and in-line DevSecOps compliance certification that Session Risk and other mobile app security features are in each build of the mobile app.

Using Threat-Events™ for Session Risk Intelligence and Control in Mobile Apps

Appdome Threat-Events™ provides consumable in-app mobile app attack intelligence and defense control when Session Risk is detected. To consume and use Threat-Events™ for Session Risk in Mobile Apps, use AddObserverForName in Notification Center, and the code samples for Threat-Events™ for Session Risk shown below.

The specifications and options for Threat-Events™ for Session Risk are:

Threat-Event™ Elements Validate Session Risk Method Detail
Appdome Feature Name Session Risk
Threat-Event Mode
OFF, IN-APP DEFENSE Appdome detects, defends and notifies user (standard OS dialog) using customizable messaging.
ON, IN-APP DETECTION Appdome detects the attack or threat and passes the event in a standard format to the app for processing (app chooses how and when to enforce).
ON, IN-APP DEFENSE Uses Appdome Enforce mode for any attack or threat and passes the event in a standard format to the app for processing (gather intel on attacks and threats without losing any protection).
Certified Secure™ Threat Event Check x
Visible in ThreatScope™ x
Developer Parameters for Validating Session Risk Threat-Event™
Threat-Event NAME
Threat-Event DATA reasonData
Threat-Event CODE reasonCode
Threat-Event SCORE
currentThreatEventScore Current Threat-Event score
threatEventsScore Total Threat-events score
Threat-Event Context Keys
Timestamp The exact time the threat event was triggered, recorded in milliseconds since epoch
message Message displayed for the user on event
externalID The external ID of the event which can be listened via Threat Events
osVersion OS version of the current device
deviceModel Current device model
deviceManufacturer The manufacturer of the current device
fusedAppToken The task ID of the Appdome fusion of the currently running app
kernelInfo Info about the kernel: system name, node name, release, version and machine.
carrierPlmn PLMN of the device. Only available for Android devices.
deviceID Current device ID
reasonCode Reason code of the occurred event
deviceBrand Brand of the device
deviceBoard Board of the device
buildUser Build user
buildHost Build host
sdkVersion Sdk version
threatCode The last six characters of the threat code specify the OS, allowing the Threat Resolution Center to address the attack on the affected device.

With Threat-Events™ enabled (turned ON), Mobile developers can get detailed attack intelligence and granular defense control in Mobile applications and create amazing user experiences for all mobile end users when Session Risk is detected.


The following is a code sample for native Mobile apps, which uses all values in the specification above for Session Risk:


Important! Replace all placeholder instances of <Context Key> with the specific name of your threat event context key across all language examples. This is crucial to ensure your code functions correctly with the intended event data. For example, The <Context Key> could be the message, externalID, OS Version, reason code, etc.



Using Appdome, there are no development or coding prerequisites to build secured Mobile Apps by using Session Risk. There is no SDK and no library to code or implement in the app and no gateway to deploy in your network. All protections are built into each app and the resulting app is self-defending and self-protecting.

Releasing and Publishing Mobile Apps with Session Risk

After successfully securing your app by using Appdome, there are several available options to complete your project, depending on your app lifecycle or workflow. These include:

Related Articles:

How Do I Learn More?

If you have any questions, please send them our way at support.appdome.com or via the chat window on the Appdome platform.

Thank you!

Thanks for visiting Appdome! Our mission is to secure every app on the planet by making mobile app security easy. We hope we’re living up to the mission with your project.

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